David Sompolinsky, professor emeritus at Bar Ilan University, turned 100 on Friday. He was born on August 6th, 1921 in Copenhagen, Denmark.
Sompolinsky had a distinguished career as a professor of microbiology but is also known for his heroics during World War II.
Denmark surrendered to Nazi Germany on April 9th, 1940. Since it promised loyal cooperation, Denmark mostly retained self-rule and its Jews were not harmed. However, at the end of August 1943, the Danish protectorate came to an end and its Jews were no longer safe. Hitler ordered Danish Jews to be arrested and deported beginning on October 1, 1943.
Thanks to an early warning on September 28, 1943, by a German diplomat, the majority of Denmark's Jews went into hiding.
During the days leading up to the deportation, Sompolinsky approached hospitals in order to request that Jews be admitted as patients under false names.
He also mobilized the teachers of his old high school, and together they formed a group that eventually brought 700 Jews to safety in Sweden.
Sompolinsky also approached the Danish prison authorities and demanded the release of all Jewish prisoners before the Germans would get to them.
The Danish resistance movement, with the assistance of many Danish citizens, eventually managed to evacuate 7,220 of Denmark's 7,800 Jews by sea to nearby neutral Sweden.
Sompolinsky's last deed was to personally escort Jewish children who had been hidden in an asylum to safety in Sweden.
Sompolinsky's heroic activities continued after emigrating to Israel. In 1960 he took part in an Israeli rescue operation in the former Belgian colony of Congo, which had descended into civil war.
He earned a doctorate in Veterinary Medicine at the University of Copenhagen in 1946, and served as a researcher at the State Serum Laboratory in Copenhagen, 1946-1950.
Sompolinsky arrived in Israel in 1951, and in 1954 received earned a doctorate in Philosophy at the Hebrew University.
He served as director of the medical laboratory at Assaf Harofe Medical Center for 35 years between 1951-1986, served as a professor of microbiology at Bar Ilan University between 1957-1989, and directed the medical laboratory at the Mayenei Hayeshua Hospital, in Bnei Brak beginning in 1991.
Sompolinsky married Ilona Malik in 1946, and the two have ten children.